India’s Urban Animals
Whenever I visit India, I genuinely feel like I am Charles Darwin discovering a new species of animal during every single trip. No, I don’t mean animals like monstrous prehistoric turtles from the Galapagos Islands or dinosaurs (although I wouldn’t even be surprised if I saw one in India), I’m talking more about the urban animals that we UK-bred Maharashtrians don’t tend to see back in our little cities. I say little, I know London is huge, but even so, you will at most find the odd fox, or very quiet pigeons at most. I have spent quite a while in Pune and have come to realise that while I love this place, I am completely unequipped to handle the animals that come with it.
I often have to remind myself that India is in fact a tropical country full of crazy animals, so it’s highly likely that a three-legged monitor lizard or an ostrich could charge into the flat at any given moment. Back in school on Wednesday mornings during chapel service, we all had to sing a song that went “all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, ‘twas God that made them all” – I can definitely confirm right here that God did not make certain animals for the good of mankind and definitely didn’t make sure they were all wise and wonderful.
No, I’m sure there were days when the lord genuinely got bored of creating the world and decided one Saturday that he would just add some drama by making a bunch of animals that would reign terror on the NRI specifically. God decided to scatter those animals across India and now, millions of years later, I, a mere human, have to deal with them.
The Cockroach
The cockroach is a modern-day version of the Ankylosaurus, a fast-moving armoured dinosaur from the Cretaceous period. When I was little my aai and baba used to tell me legends of the cockroach and how some were as big as your face. My face was small at the time. Thank god. Somehow, I never actually saw one in person, only in horror movies and while they did look intimidating and utterly gruesome, they didn’t seem to be realistic. I was sure that my parents were trying to scare me the same way they threatened to make me do school homework during holidays.
That was, until last year, when everything changed, and I happened to come across an actual cockroach. I was staying at a friend’s flat in Pune and woke up after a fantastic night’s sleep. My mouth was dry from sleeping with my mouth wide open and I desperately needed to brush my teeth, so I shuffled out of bed in my half-sleep and walked into the bathroom. About twenty seconds after walking into the bathroom I heard something like a cross between a rattlesnake and a cat hissing…I looked at the ceiling expecting there to be a snake, I looked at the window, nope, no tiger in sight. So, I carried on squeezing my toothpaste onto my toothbrush. Totally unaware of the monstrosity that was lurking less than a meter from my feet. Suddenly from the corner of my eye I saw something scurry like a lightning bolt from one corner of the room to the toilet.
I was now on full alert, eyes wide open and tensed. I turned to the floor and saw something that looked like a reddish-brown rock, lying completely still – the way a crocodile lies still before it lunges at an antelope and rips it’s head off. I took a step closer…I looked closer…armed with my toothbrush, with toothpaste still dripping from my mouth, I started to bend down to take…a closer look. Firstly, my parents are liars. Cockroaches are not brown they are RED. The colour of the devil. I realised very quickly that I was in serious, SERIOUS danger. Standing before me was a cockroach. I couldn’t yell, I couldn’t move, I just froze. I could feel the toothpaste dripping down my face, but I couldn’t wipe it away. I was in utter shock. Then “SKRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR” the cockroach RAN towards me. It ran at the speed of light towards my foot causing me to violently fling my toothbrush at it before letting out a blood-curdling scream. I wasn’t aware the cockroach could hiss and run at the same time but here it was, this massive insect hurtling towards me as if it was going to knock me out and I just lost it.
Toothbrush flying, toothpaste everywhere, I started to stamp and scream, punching the air, slapping my head in case it was on me, I was having an out of body experience. After fifteen seconds of panic I stopped and realised it had changed direction and gone back to the corner it had come from, it’s weird little windscreen wiper antennae twitching at me. I had never seen something so scary before in my life and started to cry. Thankfully at this point I think the cockroach had had enough too and proceeded to slowly crawl back down the shower drain that obviously lead to the gates of hellfire from where it had been created.
The tears were still streaming down my face and I dramatically ran out of the bathroom, slammed the door and collapsed onto my bed before hugging my pillow and bawling my eyes out even more. Every single time I had to use that bathroom again I wore boots to protect my feet and armed myself with a broom to smash the crap out of it if I saw it again. Even now as I sit writing this blog in a perfectly safe flat in Pune I have a fear of the cockroach. I will, I promise, run out of this flat, and into the road screaming for help if I see one again.
Ring-Necked Parakeets
I had to stop writing for a few minutes so I could just check there were no cockroaches in the flat before settling down to continue to discuss to more pleasant type of Pune animal, the gorgeous ring-necked parakeets. These happy little birds look more like little green shooting stars darting across the sky in the mornings. They don’t scurry, they don’t attack you and they also don’t come from hell.
Don’t be like the cockroach, be like the little ring-necked parakeet.
Sitting in the balcony with my creamy cup of coffee in the mornings and watching these birds chat to each other, the sun blazing on my skin, palm trees swaying in the wind, almost makes me want to get up and sing to them. Although thankfully I do stop myself, don’t want the builders from the block of flats facing me to think I have gone utterly mad.
Ironically enough there happens to be lots of these parakeets in Central London, there are several stories as to how on earth they would have got there but my favourite one is that a few of them, several years ago, broke out of their pen in the zoo during a storm. Since then, they multiplied and pissed off every other bird in London so much so that if you walk through Regents Park in Baker Street, you will see flocks of them chilling, catching up with each other making the cutest little chirpy squeaks all day. In a way, Indians have started to take over London, and so have our birds. Quite literally.
The Mosquito
Who on earth decided to invent these things? Like the cockroach, the mosquito also has psychopathic killer instinct that causes it to suck the blood out of its victims. The mosquito is in other words, a vampire. Remember that guy in the frumpy cloak with fangs? Dracula? Dracula is the grandfather of all mosquitoes. My childhood has been tarnished by battles with these creatures since as long as I can remember.
Every single trip to India started off with excitement and within five minutes would be ruined by bites all along my legs and arms from these absolute pests. The worst part is that they itch like nuts, so what would have started off as small insect bites turn into the angriest looking red mountains, as if I were going through another bout of chicken pox. I always thought mosquitoes would stay in the forest or the jungle, it has never made sense to me as to why there are so many in the cities. Honestly, where do they even hang out/sleep? You only ever seem to find them in the afternoon and then by night they just vanish, as if they were a figment of my imagination.
By the way, those mosquito “repellent” roll-ons they sell in Superdrug/Boots? They don’t work. The mosquito repellents they sell in India? They actually attract the mosquitoes to you, don’t buy them either. No, the only way to beat the dreaded mosquitoes is to cover your windows in those horrid net curtains, those huge panes made of the same criss-crossy material as sieves. By that logic it would be best to block out the windows with stones to doubly ensure not a single one of these buzzing pests fly into your house by mistake. Thankfully, as I have got older I haven’t seemed to get as many mosquito bites as before, I think largely due to the fact that I just refuse to go outside in the sun anymore for fear of getting burnt to a crisp by the heat here.
Pigeons
I’m not sure what the pigeons in India are eating or drinking or smoking but they are entirely different to the ones in the UK. Firstly, UK pigeons are huge, almost spherical in shape. They don’t make any noises and simply fly from one tree to the other tree. The pigeons here in India are the exact opposite. They must obviously be going to the gym because they are tiny, but more importantly they constantly. Make. Noise.
I haven’t needed to use my alarm since I have been in Pune because from roughly 7am I can hear a faint “brruuuhbruuuhhhmrooomrooo” outside the bedroom window. The volume of these pigeon purrs tends to gradually increase until it sounds like a machine drill in the wall, obviously they must be talking to each other about something really important.
Aside from my morning coffee in the flat balcony, the pigeons are the sole reason why I refuse to venture into the balcony for the rest of the day. Pigeons here aren’t scared of humans, you stare at them = they stare right back, right back at your eyes. As if they are staring into your soul. If there’s one pigeon in the balcony, pretty soon their friends join them, and then…they all stare at you. The way somebody stares at your purse before they try to rob you.
I have never been robbed in my life but I am not about to tempt a vicious pigeon to do it either. Not only that, but pigeons do not stop pooing. I am convinced they must be mixing too much garam masala into their pigeon food because every few minutes I peer out into the balcony to check if the coast is clear – I see at least eleven splotches of pigeon poos spattered across the floor, the ceiling, the table, the door, anywhere there is a space, a pigeon will have claimed it.
I’m convinced it’s an attack on the flat because they want to take it over. It’s a sign from them to me saying “we are watching you and we want you out.” Still, I’m sure the pigeons do have their plus points, I’m just not too sure what they are yet. Maybe it would help if they were brightly coloured like our friend the ring-necked parakeet? Actually…no that would probably make it worse, I’d probably be more scared if I saw a fluorescent orange ring-necked pigeon going “woorrrwoooormroomroo” at me in the balcony.
Lizzzzards
They say the lizard is “harmless”. The same way Hitler was harmless. Earthworms are harmless because they can’t move fast, they also have no eyes or visible mouth or ears, they’re like a Hakka noodle just happily flopping around in the soil. Now, add a mouth with teeth to a worm, add bloodshot eyes, claws and make it green. You now have a lizard.
Oh, also they can casually climb up walls and slither across ceilings. Upside down. If an earthworm, a bat and a velociraptor had a romantic candle-lit dinner together, the product of that night would be a lizard. What’s even more weird is that people in India just aren’t worried about them. They have this weird idea that it isn’t dangerous in the slightest. Maybe they are right, maybe I am overthinking it but generally anything with sharp teeth tends to be a hazard. That’s what I was taught growing up.
The lizard can be found anywhere in India it seems, which is why I simply refuse to walk barefooted anywhere here. A cockroach is bad enough but if I saw a lizard slinking towards my feet I think I would just pass out. I thank my lucky stars that I haven’t come across one in Pune, maybe they don’t exist in this city but that could also be me just being way too hopeful.
I have been told by many people that regardless what I think, the lizards in the city at least don’t bite, they are actually more scared of humans than we are of them. These people are also the same types of people who think the world is flat as opposed to an actual globe. I prefer to trust my gut instinct, and my gut instinct says teeth = danger zone.
Crows
Crows are reincarnated fathers in law, annoying brothers, kakus, anybody who makes lots of noise or talks a lot generally get reincarnated into a crow.
Between you and me, I actually like these birds because they look so sinister but all they actually ever do is steal food and bark. Like a younger sibling – slightly annoying yes, but ultimately totally harmless.
After coming across animals like lizards and pigeons, the crow is almost a welcome friend. Not only that but the crow is pretty much a Maharashtrian celebrity – the 2012 movie Kaksparsh pretty much catapulted them from the common jet-black bird into the Amitabh Bachchan of all birds so there’s a real sense of kinship with them. Not as pretty as the parakeet, but also not as terrifying as a cockroach, the crow is pretty much the same in India as it is in the UK so there isn’t much of a cultural shock with them.
The Strays
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a stray dog or cat in London or anywhere else in the UK. All UK dogs are collared, they look normal, and they also clearly don’t have a braincell between them – the sort of happy yet clueless kind. UK cats are also similar – friendly, happy, calm. The strays in India are the opposite. Let’s talk first about their eyes. Have you ever looked an India stray dog/cat in the eye? If you have ever read that book about Frankenstein’s monster, you’ll understand what I mean. Their eyes make them look like maniacs, like they have schizophrenia.
One must never, EVER approach a stray in India unless you want your arm ripped off or your ear drums blown out from their barking. Not only that, but they hang out…in gangs. In actual gangs. I’m pretty shocked nobody in India has made a series on strays because you can tell when they are having arguments, they actually socialise with each other. On Season 3 Episode 2 of Strays – “Gemma is lying on the floor while Jim and Kev are chewing on bones next to her. Suddenly Gemma spots Shirley and her kids trotting towards here and they start to argue (bark) about who gets to roll around in the rubbish pile. Kev bites Shirley’s tail for no reason. The whole group then started barking together until they get tired.”
I picture a TV series like this every time I see a pack of strays arguing in front of me. From the safety of a cab/balcony of course. Long story short, these are not normal cats and dogs, they are Satan’s angels of death and will not hesitate to stalk you home/beat the sh*t out of you.
The Cow
I will never stop getting fascinated by seeing cows in the middle of roads in Pune. Just the other day I was in the car and saw a huge mountain of cow casually sitting in the middle of a roundabout and exclaimed “WOWWWW A COW” as if I were five years old. The first distinct difference about cows here as opposed to the cows in the UK is how beautiful they are. Indian cows are stunning, I can see why nobody wants to eat them, they have eyes like Margot Robbie or Elizabeth Taylor – beautiful doe-shaped eyes with fluttery lashes, and long horns. UK cows look like very irritated rhinoceroses who grew no horns and have weird patchy fur. They don’t have that pleasant calm look that Indian cows do unfortunately. When I was little, and my parents used to tell me stories about Lord Krishna I always imagined Surabhi the cow to be a massive Aberdeen Angus or a black and white Holstein-Freisian. I don’t know why it didn’t ever occur to me that Krishna’s cow wouldn’t be from Yorkshire.
In any case, in India it is totally normal to see cows in the middle of the road, walking down the pavement, in a bar, going shopping – you name it. Not only that, but people don’t harm them, rather than push them away or scare them, they act as if the cow is just another person. Traffic will actually part ways to make the cow feel more comfortable. Maybe that’s why the Indian cow is also a lot nicer than UK cows.
UK cows like Indian pigeons will stare at you like the terminator if you so much as pause by their fields. This can sometimes also be followed up by them charging at you. I told you they were related to rhinos. If there were ever an animal who could convince me that I could live in India without being bitten or poo’ed on, it would be the cow. Not once have I ever had a bad experience with these gentle giants, apart from the time I was casually walking down the road in India and felt a huge slurp from one trying to lick my arm off; but the point is that while India is full of dangerous and exotic creatures, it is also home to some friendly ones like the cow.
Yes living in Pune would be quite a challenge for one so sheltered like me, I’m not used to seeing unnaturally large insects fly from one end of the house to the other, and I am definitely not comfortable seeing small reptiles do a Spider-man climb up the walls and ceilings.
No, I think it would take at least another decade before I would be totally unphased by all of that. One thing I am genuinely glad about is that I haven’t had to face any of those huge monkeys in Pune – you know, the ones who hang out together around temples like a band of aggressive uncles running a criminal enterprise.
The minute I see one of those in Pune, I will call the National Guard to airlift me out of here and back into my room in the UK where the only real threats are bumble-bees in summer or at the very most – squirrels.
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